Team Calinetic
Team Calinetic (sometimes shortened to simply Calinetic) was a Jamaican race car constructor founded by Joseph Calinetic and known for winning the inaugural 2010 F1RWRS season drivers' championship with Gary Cameron. Despite this, the team never won a constructors' title and and thereafter struggled in the F1RWRS. History Early Years (2005-2009) The team was founded by Jamaican businessman Joseph Calinetic in 2005, who secured funding from America, engineers from the UK and a pit crew from Spain. They had the most success in the GT Tuning Cup, with their Koenig GT always up the front. They also enjoyed mild success in the Global GT Lights, and ran a US Speedtruck, winning the 2005 championship, both for drivers and teams, despite neither driver scoring a win, a pattern that would continue in the future. F1RWRS Years (2010-2013) When the announcement of the creation of the F1RWRS was made in late 2009, Calinetic immediately built a chassis. As one of the ten founding teams competing in the 2010 season, Calinetic hired drivers Gary Cameron and Phoenix McAllister. They would race the season without winning, yet Cameron still took the championship, on sheer consistency alone. Unfortunately, McAllister was not as fast as his teammate, and Calinetic lost the constructors' title to Prospec. 2011 was not as successful, although Cameron still managed to finish third in the championship, winning the team's first (and only) race at the Dutch GP. Shortly before the season, the team sacked McAllister and hired Thomas De Bock, who finished 9th overall. The team was third in the constructors' standings, but well behind Prospec and JLD Motorsport. Team Calinetic's decline began in 2012. De Bock had been replaced at the end of 2011 by David Koczo, who they'd stolen from Prospec and whilst Cameron stayed on for another season with the team, he subsequently left after the sixth race of the year at the Dutch Grand Prix, the site of his win for the team a year previously. He'd become unhappy at the team's performance, the Briton having only qualified for three races at that point in the year. Nicolas Steele was hired to replace Cameron, but he would only qualify for 3 out of the 10 races he entered. Koczo meanwhile stayed put for the whole season, but the only highlight was taking pole at the German GP, finishing fourth. Following their poor 2012 season, the decline continued as Calinetic were relegated to pre-qualifying for 2013, and only started two races, failing to pre-qualify for the rest. Steele and Koczo both stayed with the team, but Steele left for Kamaha after just two races. The team convinced John Zimmer to return from retirement, and he managed to convince a number of sponsors to join them. He and Koczo qualified for the Mexican GP, with Zimmer finishing 6th and scoring a point. It wasn't enough to get them out of pre-qualifying, and it was the team's only point all year. Both Zimmer and Koczo also qualified for the Belgian GP, with Koczo the best of the two drivers, finishing in 9th. Thereafter from the Portuguese GP, Zimmer left the team, initially replaced by rookie Nathan Scott, though for the final race of the year at Brazil, Koczo was paired with Poppy Whitechapel. Neither passed pre-qualifying in what turned out to be the team's final race, though the decision to pull the plug on the team's F1RWRS operation had already been made by team boss Joseph Calinetic at the Chinese GP. The Jamaican stated that their lack of results had induced a low return on investment, and as a result the team was lacking the funds necessary for competing at the top level of motor racing. Formula One (2016- In 2016, Calinetic was announced as one of the new team's joining the grid. But soon problems struck, as the team was left with the expensive Mercedes engines, and with a dull chassis, which led to the owner of the team to resign. The team was bought by Andrew Caine, who tried to fix the issues by hiring proven man Evgeny Restov, and ex-talent, Giorgio Pantano. The team faced a difficult season, and eventually finished in 10th in the constructor champioship, with Restov taking a podium place in the German Grand Prix. For 2017, the team kept the Petronas sponsorship, and hired the young dutch talent Max Verstapen and Jazeman Jaafar, to replace the departuring drivers, while Dean Stoneman was kept as the team's test driver. And before the start of the season, it was already clear that 2017 was going to be another year fighting for minor point. Legacy Team Calinetic remain as one of the most successful of the original ten founding teams of the F1RWRS, and the most successful of those no longer competing. They helped establish the career of the now well known Gary Cameron, one of the most successful drivers in the series, whilst Nathan Scott has gone on to drive for front-running team DGNgineering. They remain as one of only a select group of teams to have won a championship title, and are the only Jamaican team to have ever competed in the F1RWRS. For a while after closure of their F1RWRS team, the Calinetic racing team continued to compete in other motorsport categories, with varying degrees of success. Complete F1RWRS Results Category:F1RWRS Teams Category:Defunct teams